Just say “no” to euthanasia: Anglican Ink, May 22, 2013 May 22, 2013
Posted by geoconger in 73rd General Convention, Anglican Ink, The Episcopal Church, Vermont.Tags: euthanasia, Thomas Ely
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Vermont has become the fourth American state to legalize euthanasia after Gov. Peter Shumlin signed into law the “End of Life Choices” Act which permits physicians to administer a fatal overdose to terminally ill patients who wish to commit suicide.
On 20 May 2013 Gov. Peter Shumlin signed the bill into law after it was approved by the state legislature: 75 to 65 in the House and 17 to 13 in the Senate.
“This bill does not compel anyone to do anything that they don’t choose in sound mind to do. All it does is give those who are facing terminal illness, are facing excruciating pain, a choice in a very carefully regulated way,” the governor said after he signed the bill.
Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said this was “a tragic moment for Vermont. It is also a sign of an alarming trend nationwide. In the three states where physician-assisted suicide is now legal, doctors are called upon to destroy life, rather than to save life and provide much-needed comfort in times of pain and distress.”
He urged “all people of good will to fight the future passage of such laws.”
The Episcopal Bishop of Vermont the Rt. Rev. Thomas Ely told Anglican Ink the Vermont Ecumenical Council and Bible Society hosted a series of forums on physician-assisted suicide. It issued a statement in 2003 when the issue was first brought to the legislature and again in 2011, giving a “clean statement of our position.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Contradictory rulings in US Episcopal property cases: The Church of England Newspaper, May 21, 2013 May 22, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation, The Episcopal Church.1 comment so far
The Episcopal Church’s legal battles over property spawned a number of contradictory rulings and judgments over the past few weeks.
A Superior Court in Southern California has ordered a breakaway parish to turn over its property to the diocese of Los Angeles; the Virginia Supreme Court handed down a mixed ruling allowing a breakaway parish to keep its cash but not its property; while the Northern California Superior Court has rejected the claim that as a matter of law a diocese may not withdraw from the Episcopal Church without permission of the General Convention.
A decision is also expected shortly in the Fort Worth case from the Texas Supreme Court. The justices are expected to rule this month whether the Diocese of Fort Worth under Bishop Jack Iker may withdraw from the Episcopal Church.
Following three weeks of court proceedings in Illinois, the case of the Diocese of Quincy v the Episcopal Church has been placed before a judge for adjudication. A decision is expected this summer.
A decision is also expected in federal court in South Carolina on the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina. After suffering a major setback in the state court, attorneys for the national Church filed a motion to remove the case to the federal courts, arguing that issues of trademark law and church/state law should be litigated in that venue.
On 25 April the Fresno Superior Court in California affirmed its 6 March ruling denying summary judgment to the Episcopal Church in its lawsuit against the diocese of San Joaquin. Judge Jeffrey Hamilton said there were disputed issues of fact to be resolved in deciding whether the diocese acted lawfully when its Synod voted in December 2007 to withdraw from the Episcopal Church.
Relying upon the neutral principles of law doctrine to adjudicate the issue judge Hamilton held the Episcopal Church had failed to show that is a matter of law the Constitution and canons of the national Episcopal Church forbad the unilateral withdrawal of the diocese from the national church.
On 1 May 2013 Judge Kim Dunning of the Orange County Superior Court in Southern California held that the Bishop of Los Angeles had no authority to give the parish of St James in Newport Beach a written waiver exempting the congregation’s property from the reach of the Dennis Canon.
She ordered the parish to hand over its $17 million property to the diocese, finding the national Church’s rules governing parish property took precedence over civil property and trust laws.
She dismissed as non-binding a 1991 letter signed by the then Canon to the Ordinary D Bruce MacPherson, later to become the Bishop of Western Louisiana, on behalf of Bishop Frederick Borsch that released the diocese’s claim to the property.
However, this waiver did not amend the parish bylaws and diocesan canons and even if it did, “the Bishop of the Diocese did not, and does not, have authority to amend any of these instruments,” the judge ruled.
The St James Newport Beach case has been in the California courts since 2004 and has twice been to the Supreme Court in Sacramento. A decision on whether to appeal this ruling has not yet been made by the parish leadership.
The Virginia Supreme Court in The Falls Church v. Protestant Episcopal Church (USA), affirmed a lower court ruling awarding all of the real and personal property of what had been the largest parish in the Diocese of Virginia to the diocese. However it ordered that funds raised by the parish after it had broken with the diocese belong to the parish.
In her decision Justice Cleo Powell held that a “fiduciary relationship” existed between The Falls Church and the national Church. The parish could not acquire an interest in its own property that was adverse to the national Church, she argued, even though the title deeds did not reflect any trust relationship between the parties.
Last week The Falls Church stated they would request a rehearing of their case, noting Judge Powell had erred in deciding the case on the basis of a fiduciary relationship, noting the issue had not been before the court.
Diversity, not Jesus, saves says Presiding Bishop: Anglican Ink, May 20, 2013 May 20, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Atonement, diversity, Katharine Jefferts Schori, soteriology
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The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church has denounced the Apostle Paul as mean-spirited and bigoted for having released a slave girl from demonic bondage as reported in Acts 16:16-34 .
In her sermon delivered at All Saints Church in Curaçao in the diocese of Venezuela, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori condemned those who did not share her views as enemies of the Holy Spirit.
The presiding bishop opened her remarks with an observation on the Dutch slave past. “The history of this place tells some tragic stories about the inability of some to see the beauty in other skin colors or the treasure of cultures they didn’t value or understand,” she said.
She continued stating: “Human beings have a long history of discounting and devaluing difference, finding it offensive or even evil. That kind of blindness is what leads to oppression, slavery, and often, war. Yet there remains a holier impulse in human life toward freedom, dignity, and the full flourishing of those who have been kept apart or on the margins of human communities.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Anglican Unscripted Episode 72, May 18, 2013 May 18, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Anglican Church of North America, Anglican Church of Tanzania, Anglican.TV, Church of England, Church of Nigeria, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Boko Haram, gay marriage, Jacob Chimeledya, Valentino Mokiwa, Wallace Benn
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Episode 72 of Anglican Unscripted brings even more news about the Anglican Church (Communion) around the world. Kevin and George talk about stories from Tanzania and Nigeria, who are dealing with internal conflict and Muslim-on-Christian violence.
It is also time to give an update on the Temporary Same Sex Liturgies the Episcopal Church passed at General Convention last year and who is using them and who is not.
AS Haley updates all the major legal cases around the country and discusses the late breaking news from The Falls Church.
Peter Ould talks about the growing conflict and investigation in Jersey. It is hard to tell if the biggest issue is jurisdiction or lack of trasparency.
Finally, in the blooper real at the end of the episode (after the credits) one of our contributors reveals a hidden talent. #AU72 Comments to AnglicanUnscripted@gmail.com
Anglican Unscripted, Episode 71, May 10. 2013 May 14, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Anglican Church of North America, Anglican.TV, Los Angeles, Property Litigation, Quincy, San Joaquin, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Diocese of Niagara, Michael Bird, St James Newport Beach
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In this week’s Episode your host talk about the latest legal heartbreak in California. Also this week, there is late breaking international news about a Bishop who accidentally invokes Scripture. AU’s Legal segment covers all of the court cases in the US, and Kevin interviews David Jenkins about his lawsuit from Bishop Byrd. #AU71 Comments: AnglicanUnscripted@gmail.com
Los Angeles wins summary judgment in Newport Beach property case: Anglican Ink, May 2, 2013 May 3, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Los Angeles, Property Litigation.Tags: St James Newport Beach
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The Bishop of Los Angeles had no authority to give the parish of St James in Newport Beach a written waiver exempting the congregation’s property from the reach of the Episcopal Church’s Dennis Canon, an Orange County Superior Court Judge has held.
In a ruling for summary judgment handed down on 1 May 2013 Judge Kim Dunning ordered the parish to hand its multi-million dollar properties over to the Diocese of Los Angeles.
The decision was unexpected, Daniel Lula – an attorney for the parish — told Anglican Ink, as the matter had been set down for trial later this month. In an email to his congregation, the Rev Richard Crocker said: “We have received notice this morning from our attorneys that the court has handed down a significantly negative ruling in our court case. This of course changes the landscape of next week’s trial,” he noted, inviting the parish to a meeting with Mr. Lula “to offer explanation of what we know about the ruling at this point.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
South Carolina clergy threatened with deposition: The Church of England Newspaper, April 28, 2013, p 6. May 1, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Abraham Nhial, Charles vonRosenberg
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The Episcopal Church has written to 140 active and retired priests and deacons asking them to affirm their loyalty to New York-based national church and foreswear allegiance to Bishop Mark Lawrence and the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.
Bishop Charles vonRosenberg, the provisional bishop of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina, — the loyalist organization in the diocese backed by the national church – last week wrote: “I invite you to make known your allegiance to [The Episcopal Church] and, if you wish, to request a time to speak with me about this matter … You face a very serious decision, with significant consequences for you and for the church, and I encourage your careful and prayerful consideration.”
The bishop has given the clergy two weeks to respond and if no response is forthcoming he would begin the process to depose in the ordained ministry. The legality of the bishop’s letter has not been clarified as the Episcopal Church in South Carolina is not a member of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church and its Bishop would appear to lack authority to make such demands. The letter also follows a pattern of action taken by the national church in the disputes with breakaway dioceses of Pittsburgh, Quincy, San Joaquin, and Fort Worth. Diocesan officials note that apart from concerns over the distress the letter has given to retired clergy who had not been involved in the dispute, the letter will most likely be ignored.
The letter came the same day as four East African bishops on a visit to Charleston affirmed Bishop Lawrence and his diocese’s place in the wider Anglican Communion. Bishop Abraham Nhial of the Diocese of Aweil in the Sudan told reporters “We love Mark [Lawrence].”
Along with Bishops Robert Martin of Marsabit, Kenya, Elias Mazi Chakupewa of Tabora, Tanzania, and Nathan Gasatura of Butare, Rwanda, Bishop Nhial said: “We came to encourage Bishop Mark Lawrence to stand firm in the faith.”
“The people of South Sudan have suffered for 50 years. We’ve died because of our belief in Christ, our identity as Christians. I want to assure my brother Mark that suffering is part of our belief in Christ. We came here tonight not only to discuss what we’re doing in Christ, but also to encourage you to stand up and stand firm in your own faith.”
Prayers for Boston bombing victims: The Church of England Newspaper, April 29, 2013 May 1, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Terrorism, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Boston Marathon bmbing
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U.S. President Barack Obama spoke to a congregation of over 2000 last week at Boston’s Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Cross to commemorate those killed and wounded in the Boston Marathon bombing.
Boston “will run again” the president said on 18 April 2013. “If they sought to intimidate us, to terrorize us … It should be pretty clear right now that they picked the wrong city … .”
On 15 April – celebrated as Patriots’ Day in Boston — two explosions ripped through a crowd near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killing three and injuring more than 170. “We may be momentarily knocked off our feet,” the president said. “But we’ll pick ourselves up. We’ll keep going. We will finish the race.”
President Obama called the then as yet unidentified terrorists “small, stunted individuals who would destroy instead of build, and think somehow that makes them important.”
“Yes, we will find you. And, yes, you will face justice. We will find you. We will hold you accountable,” the president said.
That evening one of the suspected bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, (26) was killed in a shootout with police in Watertown a western suburb of Boston. Earlier that night Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (19) shot and killed a policeman. During the firefight that later ensued a second policeman was shot and gravely wounded.
Dzhokhar fled the scene of the shootout and Gov. Deval Patrick ordered a curfew for Watertown as police began a house to house search. Dzhokhar was captured the next day after a man found the fugitive hiding in a boat parked on the trailer behind his home.
The two bombers have been identified as Chechen immigrants to the United States and initial reports indicate that they had become radicalized Islamists in the past few years. The Tsarnaev brothers attended prayer services at the Islamic Society of Boston Cambridge Masjid, a small mosque near their apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.
“In their visits, they never exhibited any violent sentiments or behavior,” said a statement from the masjid. “Otherwise they would have been immediately reported to the FBI. After we learned of their identities, we encouraged anyone who knew them in our congregation to immediately report to law enforcement, which has taken place.”
Trinity Church Copley Square, an Episcopal Church 300 yards from the Boston Marathon’s finish line, had been closed for the race and remains closed as police investigate the crime scene. The church’s rector, the Rev. Patrick Ward, told Episcopal News Service he was “hugely relieved” to learn the church’s team of runners was safe.
The Archdiocese of Boston’s Cardinal Seán O’Malley sent a message from Israel following the attacks saying he would be returning to join the city’s faith community “to witness the greater power of good in our society and to work together for healing.” The Vatican sent a telegram to the archdiocese, saying Pope Francis “prays that all Bostonians will be united in a resolve not to be overcome by evil, but to combat evil with good.”
Following the blast the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Katharine Jefferts Schori offered a prayer for those killed and injured as did the Anglican Church in North America. “As we pray for those affected by the bombings in Boston, MA, it seems appropriate to pray for the reign of Christ in this situation. May the Lord pour out His Spirit of peace during this time of chaos and violence.”
Anglican Unscripted Episode 70 April 28, 2013 April 28, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican.TV, Church of the Province of the West Indies, GAFCON, Property Litigation, South Carolina, Virginia.Tags: Boston Marathon Bombing, New Wineskins
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In Episode 70, your hosts talk about their experiences from the New Wineskins Global Conference held in Ridgecrest, NC. Kevin and George also discuss (in depth) the Boston Bombing and the new hobby terrorist. In our legal segment Allan Haley tries to redeem his years of Unscripted Legal Commentary by demanding that judges follow the D**n law. Oh… and much more including Gafcon news. #AU70 AnglicanUnscripted@gmail.com
Unforced Episcopal errors from the Wall Street Journal; Get Religion, April 15, 2013 April 16, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Press criticism, Property Litigation, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Mark Lawrence, Wall Street Journal
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Even the best newspapers will drop a brick now and again. And today’s piece in the Wall Street Journal about the Episcopal wars in South Carolina is a real stinker.
I’ve been reading the Journal since the early 1980s when I went to New York to work as a floor clerk at the Commodities Exchange for Drexel Burnham Lambert. In those far off misty days of my misspent youth (the lark’s on the wing, the snail’s on the thorn, Reagan’s in the White House, God’s in His heaven, all was right with the world) I would start at the back of the paper every morning and work forward after I had finished with the futures prices.
As my life and interests took a different path (no more filthy lucre for me) I began to enjoy the paper’s forays into religion, art, literature and other highbrow genres. The Wall Street Journal has consistently done a fine job in covering these topics bringing a depth of knowledge and balance to its reporting — and is one of the best written, best edited English language newspapers in the business.
Hence my disappointment with today’s article entitled “Church Fight Heads to Court: South Carolina Episcopalian Factions Each File Suit After Split Over Social Issues”. The story gets just about everything of importance wrong. The lede misrepresents the underlying issue. It begins:
Episcopalians along the South Carolina coast are battling in court to determine which of two factions owns an estimated $500 million in church buildings, grounds and cemeteries, following an acrimonious split last year over social issues.
The leadership and about two-thirds of the members of the Diocese of South Carolina, based in Charleston, broke away from the national Episcopal Church last November over its blessing of same-sex unions, ordination of gay clergy and its liberal approach to other social and theological issues.
No, that is not what happened. In South Carolina the diocesan convention voted to withdraw from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church after the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church suspended the Bishop of South Carolina with the intent to depose him (remove him from the ministry). Yes, South Carolina has opposed the innovations of doctrine and discipline introduced over the past two generations — and I guess you could say, taking the long view, that social issues were subsidiary issues — but last year’s split was in response to specific actions taken by the leadership of the national church.
Farther down the article some of the details about the South Carolina fight are presented and the story gets the facts back on track.
In South Carolina, bad blood between the diocese and the national church has been building for about 15 years. It reached a breaking point last summer, when the bishop and other leaders of the diocese walked out of the triennial General Convention in Indianapolis, following the national church’s approval of policies on blessing same-sex unions. The walkout triggered a series of events, including the national church’s removal of the Rt. Rev. Lawrence as bishop, and subsequent lawsuits.
(A hint that the writer is not au courant with religion reporting is the “Rt. Rev. Lawrence” — proper style is to use the first name after the Rt Rev and then Bishop or Dr if you want an honorific before the last name.)
The story also collapses the time line of the Episcopal wars and is written as if the South Carolina lawsuit is new news when the latest lawsuit was filed about six weeks ago.
The schism in South Carolina is one of many that have erupted over the past decade between local Episcopal parishes and dioceses and their national church—particularly since the election of a gay bishop in 2003. Thousands of conservative members left their churches over such issues around the middle of last decade, a time some Southern churchgoers call “the Great Unpleasantness,” the same euphemism once used for the Civil War. Other mainline Protestant denominations also have struggled with issues related to homosexuality, with many congregations moving to leave the Presbyterian Church USA after its leadership voted to allow openly gay clergy.
The split between liberal and conservative Episcopalians has been around for almost 40 years and has witnessed dozens of lawsuits between congregations and diocese. Beginning in 2006 the national church headquarters entered the fray spending upwards of $24 million (this in addition to the fees paid out by the dioceses and parishes). Nor did the fight begin in 2003 — GetReligion‘s tmatt has written extensively on this point and I need not restate the accurate Anglican timeline here.
The reporting on the lawsuits — the purpose of the article — is dodgy as well. The article reports the diocese filed a lawsuit in December in state court, with the explanation “The group says it shouldn’t have to turn property over to a church that it believes has drifted from Biblical principles.” Well that was one of the issues — but the bulk of the pleadings and the central issue before the state court was who was the true Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina?
This is followed in the article by the response of the national church affiliated faction:
A group representing the one-third of diocesan congregants still aligned with the national Episcopal Church have joined it in filing suit in federal court, arguing the property must remain with the national church. The national church, which says it is the one upholding Biblical teachings by wrestling with difficult questions as a community, believes the suit should be heard in federal court because it argues the dispute involves the First Amendment; a hearing is expected later this spring on whether the matter will go to federal or state court.
No. This is not true either. On 31 January lawyers representing the national church faction agreed to the entry of a preliminary injunction against their client (called a temporary injunction in South Carolina) promising not to use the name, marks and insignia of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina pending the outcome of the state court proceedings.
On 6 March the national church faction brought a complaint based on the federal trademark law known as the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. Sections 1051 et seq.) against Bishop Lawrence claiming it, not Bishop Lawrence and his faction were the true diocese. It asked the federal court to block the January state court order in favor of Bishop Lawrence and his group. Bishop Lawrence, they argued, was infringing on their trademarks. And last week, back in state court, the attorneys for the national church filed their answer to the original lawsuit.
Religious freedom and the First Amendment are all well and good, but it would have behooved the Journal to read the pleadings rather than the press hand outs.
The choice of legal commentary is one-sided — and also manages to pawn off further frauds onto the reader while managing to omit one of the crucial elements in the story.
How the fight will be resolved is difficult to tell. The national church has prevailed in 12 similar disputes in state supreme or appellate courts since 1980, said Martin Nussbaum, a Colorado specialist in church property law who isn’t involved in the South Carolina matter.
Some religious scholars say such schisms are hurting the church’s image and distracting attention that could be devoted to reversing a decline in church membership. “Once we’re through the issue of property and gay people, the real issue is how can this church change its way of being?” said Frank Kirkpatrick, the author of “The Episcopal Church in Crisis: How Sex, the Bible, and Authority are Dividing the Faithful.”
This is untrue also. While a number of lawsuits between dioceses and parishes have gone to state supreme courts, with the diocese prevailing in many of them, in South Carolina the state supreme court ruled the other way and held the church’s national property rules, called the Dennis Canon, were of no legal effect in South Carolina. In other words, if a parish has clear title to its property in South Carolina, it can take it with it if it leaves its diocese or denomination. Omitting this crucial legal precedent in the story was most unfortunate.
It should also be added that the appellate courts have not adjudicated the issue of whether a diocese may withdraw from the national church. Attorneys for the national church have argued the legal precedents from outside South Carolina governing the relationship of the parish to the diocese should govern the relationship of the diocese to the national church. The diocese’s lawyers in South Carolina have argued this relationship is not comparable.
One might also add, contrary to the assertion in the article about declining membership, that until these lawsuits erupted the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina was one of the few Episcopal diocese to see a growth in membership over the past decade.
So far I’ve pointed out mistakes of fact, significant omissions, and unbalanced commentary — let’s look at tone. The deafness of this article — its cluelessness — can be illustrated by this line;
The breakaway group, which still calls itself the Diocese of South Carolina, continues to operate from the diocesan headquarters and retains control of many of its most recognizable parishes, including St. Michael’s, in Charleston, established in the 1750s.
The breakaway group still calls itself the “Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina” — not merely the “Diocese of South Carolina”. The “Episcopal” name, and from it the control of assets, is the question before the courts.
Not a good outing I’m afraid from the Journal.
Update: I neglected to mention a further flaw. The photo of the church used with the article is captioned as St Michael’s Church in Charleston — the photo is actually of St Helena’s in Beaufort. Hardly a fatal flaw, but I suppose it does help to pack all your errors into one story.
First printed in Get Religion.
TEC hits back in South Carolina: The Church of England Newspaper, April 7, 2013 p 4. April 9, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Fort Worth, Property Litigation, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Lanham Act
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The national Episcopal Church has taken the offensive in South Carolina filing lawsuits in federal court and a counterclaim in state court against the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, its Bishop, clergy and lay leaders.
On Maundy Thursday the national church filed an answer to the diocese’s 4 Jan 2013 lawsuit seeking a ban on the use of its name and seal by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her allies, and asking the civil courts to confirm that it had lawfully withdrawn from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
The national church and its allies in South Carolina denied the diocesan claims and in their counterclaim asserted that all diocesan and parish property in South Carolina belonged to them. It also brought suit against the parish officers and diocesan leaders in their personal capacities alleging they had engaged in a civil conspiracy to defraud the national Episcopal Church.
In a statement given to the Church of England Newspaper on Good Friday, Canon Jim Lewis of the diocese of South Carolina wrote there was “little to say about the counterclaims.”
“We are saddened they filed their suits on Maundy Thursday in the middle of Holy Week and that they have made the lawsuit personal by suing individuals who make up the leadership of our parishes. However we are not surprised that TEC’s filing now makes clear its intention to seize all the properties of the Diocese of South Carolina and its parishes. The court filings are consistent with the scores of lawsuits The Episcopal Church has filed against dioceses and parishes across the United States,” he said.
On 7 March 2013 the national church asked the US District Court in South Carolina to grant a preliminary injunction to Bishop Lawrence and his allies from using the name and trademarks of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and from representing that his activities were associated with the diocese.
In a suit akin to one filed with the federal courts in Texas, attorneys for the national church argued Bishop Lawrence and his allies had violated the Lanham Act and violated federal trademark law. The federal court in Texas has held it will not hear that case until the state court proceedings are concluded. Lawyers for the diocese of South Carolina tell CEN they expect the federal court in their state to make a similar decision.
On 31 Jan 2013 attorneys representing the national church agreed to the entry of an order in state court that forbade the national church and its surrogates from claiming to act on behalf of the diocese. The new lawsuit in federal court seeks to undo this legal defeat and move the case to a different court.
Anglican Unscripted Episode 69, March 29, 2013 April 3, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican.TV, Hymnody/Liturgy, Marriage, Popular Culture, The Episcopal Church.Tags: gay marriage, stations of the cross
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In this week’s Anglican Unscripted your hosts discuss what Marriage is… and what Marriage isn’t — and with a combined total of 50 years Marriage experience — you are in safe hands. This is also Holy Week and this gives Kevin and George a chance to look around the Communion to discover how clergy are celebrating.
Some around the Anglican Communion have been told that the Episcopal Church doesn’t sue anybody… well the Episcopal church made it very clear this Easter season that is just wrong; and Kevin and AS Haley discuss the latest barrage from 815 and how it effects every vestry member in the Diocese of South Carolina. Kevin, George, Allan, and Peter pray that this Easter brings you into a closer walk with the Man who left the tomb empty. Comments to AnglicanUnscripted@gmail.com Tweet: AU69
Final appeal dismissed in Zimbabwe property cases: The Church of England Newspaper, March 3, 3013, p 7. March 23, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Church of the Province of Central Africa, Property Litigation, Zimbabwe.Tags: Diocese of Manicaland, Elson Jakazi, Julius Makoni, Luke Malaba, Nolbert Kunonga, Vernanda Ziyambi
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The Zimbabwe Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal of the former bishop of Manicaland Elson Jakazi, closing the last legal door on the Kunonga schism in Zimbabwe.
In a ruling handed down last week Justice Vernanda Ziyambi dismissed the former bishop’s application for a rehearing of his case, stating the arguments put forward were without merit. The decision now permits Bishop Julius Makoni and the diocese to begin eviction proceedings to remove the bishop and his supporters from the diocese’s cathedral, churches, schools and hospitals.
In October 2012 a three judge panel of the Zimbabwe Supreme Court heard seven appeals brought by the Church of the Province of Central Africa and the breakaway bishops of Harare and Manicaland, Dr. Nolbert Kunonga and Bishop Jakazi. The court dismissed five of the appeals and two cases concerning Dr. Kunonga and the Diocese of Harare were taken under advisement.
Deputy Chief Justice Luke Malaba, sitting with Justices Vernanda Ziyambi and Yunus Omerjee struck Bishop Jakazi’s case from consideration finding he had failed to comply with the rules of the court.
On 19 May 2010 Mutare High Court Justice Chinembiri Bhunu held that as Bishop Jakazi had resigned his see to join Dr. Kunonga to form the schismatic Anglican Church of Zimbabwe, he was no longer Bishop of Manicaland. “What this means is that once [Bishop Jakazi]‘s resignation letter was received by the Archbishop of the Central African Province of Central Africa, he automatically ceased to be an employee or member of that church organization without any further formalities.”
“Having ceased to be an employee or member of the church organisation he automatically stripped himself of any rights and privileges arising” from his office, Justice Bhunu concluded However a stay of execution of the order to vacate was entered pending appeal.
While the legal fight to regain the properties may have ended with victory for the Church of the Province of Central Africa, the dioceses of Harare and Manicaland face considerable financial burdens in repairing their churches.
After the diocese regained control of its Cathedral in November, the Harare City Council disconnected its water supply. The city has demanded payment of over $55,000 in utility charges incurred by Dr. Kunonga that were unpaid at the time of his eviction. The diocese has asked the city to seek payment from Dr. Kunonga for the debts.
A city council spokesman told The Zimbabwean “It is not Kunonga who owes us but the Anglican Cathedral. We do not mind who pays it but the bill has got to be settled.”
TEC marriage task force formed: The Church of England Newspaper, February 24, 2013 p 7. March 23, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Marriage, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Gay Jennings, Katherine Jefferts Schori
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The Presiding Bishop and President of the House of Deputies of the Episcopal Church have named 12 people to serve on the church’s Task Force on the Study of Marriage.
In a statement released on 14 Feb 2013, Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said the group would help the church chart its way forward as it seeks to find a theological rationale for the changes introduced last year. At the July 2012 General Convention the Episcopal Church authorized temporary provisional rites for blessing same-sex unions and authorized a study group to examine the doctrine of marriage.
The presiding bishop explained: “The theology of marriage has evolved over time, with biblical examples including polygamy, concubinage, and other forms of relationship no longer sanctioned in The Episcopal Church.”
“We no longer expect that one partner promise to obey the other, that parents give away their children to be married, or that childbearing is the chief purpose of marriage. This task force is charged not only to take the pulse of our current theological understanding of the meaning of marriage, but to assist the faithful in conversation and discernment about marriage, in particular what the Church might hold up as “holy example” of the love between Christ and his Church.”
While the Episcopal Church has never sanctioned polygamy and concubinage, in the Twentieth century it modified its practices on divorce and remarriage. The aims of marriage as ordered in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer: procreation, remedy for sin, and mutual care, have been reordered in successive American prayer books and are currently given as mutual joy, mutual care and the procreation of children.
President Gay Jennings observed: “The Episcopal Church’s theology and practice of marriage has changed significantly over the centuries, and we need to understand more clearly what we as a church mean when we use that word.”
The 12 member task force, whose members are drawn from the church’s liberal wing, are to deliver their report to the 2015 meeting of General Convention.
Anglican Unscripted Episode 68, March 22, 2013 March 22, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Anglican.TV, Church of England, The Episcopal Church.comments closed
Dust off the Herald Trumpet and dry clean your vestments as we have a new Pope and a new Archbishop of Canterbury this week, meanwhile your AU hosts refuse to gush and talk at the same time. Also this week there are more details regarding the scandal over the elections in Tanzania and news from the Jersey shore… the other Jersey shore. Kevin talks with a special guest and George breaks next weeks top story this week. Comments to anglicanunscripted@gmail.com and tweet: #AU68
Second legal blow for TEC in South Carolina case: The Church of England Newspaper, February 20, 2013. March 15, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Allan Haley, Diane Goodstein, Thomas Tisdale
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Lawyers for the Episcopal Church have conceded that Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s claim that while people may leave the Episcopal Church, dioceses and congregations may not, is without merit.
The concession, Canon lawyer Allan Haley reports, comes in their acquiescence to the filing of a Temporary Injunction issued in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina court case, forbidding the national church or its allies from using the name, symbols or seal of the diocese.
Entered with the consent of attorneys representing the national church, the 31 Jan 2013 order by Judge Diane Goodstein replaces a 23 Jan Temporary Restraining Order, effectively making permanent the ban that forbid the national church and its surrogates from claiming to act on behalf of the diocese.
Mr. Haley noted the injunction remains in effect until Judge Goodstein agrees to modify it, or dissolve it, for good cause shown.
The injunction “maintains the status quo ante until the case can be tried,” he said, and “keeps the parties in the same position they were before the dispute between them arose — it is designed to prevent one of the parties from unilaterally moving the goalposts before the game can be played. At the end of the trial, the court will decide either to make preliminary injunction permanent, or else to dissolve it once and for all.”
Mr. Haley said the national church’s “capitulation”, by agreeing to the injunction, establishes “facts on the ground”.
“There is a legally cognizable “Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina,” whose legal existence began in 1785.”
“The remnant Episcopalian group may not either assume its name, or claim to be the same religious non-profit corporation under South Carolina law.”
The “Diocese has actually separated itself in law from the Episcopal Church. It exists, under its own State’s laws, wholly separate and apart from the Church of which it formerly was a member.”
The loyalist group will be a “brand-new religious entity, whose existence was not a legal reality until it met and organized itself on January 26, 2013.”
These “facts on the ground” are “fatal” to the argument put forward by the national church that people may leave, but dioceses may not, Mr. Haley said. “South Carolina is living proof of the fact that Dioceses and their associated parishes may indeed, as is their constitutional right under the First Amendment, leave.”
“We are gratified that The Episcopal Church has consented to a temporary injunction protecting the identity of our Diocese and its parishes,” said Jim Lewis, Canon of the Diocese. “We pray that sentiment fuels the prompt and reasonable resolution we all seek.
Thomas Tisdale, chancellor of the Episcopal Church in South Carolina – the faction in South Carolina loyal to the national church — did not respond to our queries.
Anglican accolades for Francis I: Anglican Ink, March 13, 2013 March 14, 2013
Posted by geoconger in The Episcopal Church, Church of England, Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Ink.Tags: Francis I, Justin Welby, Katharine Jefferts Schori
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The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has offered his congratulations to Francis I, the first Latin American and first Jesuit pope.
Francis’ election is “of great significance to Christians everywhere, not least among Anglicans. We have long since recognised—and often reaffirmed—that our churches hold a special place for one another. I look forward to meeting Pope Francis, and to walking and working together to build on the consistent legacy of our predecessors. May the love of Christ unite us, and intensify our service in a genuine and fruitful ecumenism that can be a blessing for the Body of Christ throughout the world,” Archbishop Welby said.
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The presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Katharine Jefferts Schori was less effusive. “The Episcopal Church will pray for the new Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis I, and for the possibility of constructive dialogue and cooperation between our Churches.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Additional Complaints Filed in Tanzania: Anglican Ink, March 7, 2013 March 7, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Anglican Church of Tanzania, Anglican Ink, Corruption, GAFCON, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Jacobo Chimeledya, Valentino Mokiwa
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Three complaints have been lodged with the Anglican Church of Tanzania (ACT) by members of the church’s general synod alleging misconduct and fraud in the conduct of last month’s election of an archbishop.
On 3 March 2013 Dr Dickson Chilongani, Provincial Secretary of the ACT, released a statement announcing the election of the Rt. Rev. Jacob Erasto Chimeledya “as the new Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Tanzania.”
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However supporters of the sitting archbishop, Valentino Mokiwa of Dar es Salaam, cried foul. A 27 Feb 2013 complaint seen by AI has alleged eight constitutional irregularities in the voting, including the casting of four more ballots than electors present. The claim put forward by Dr. Chilongani was ingenuous, they added, stating that while the House of Bishops may have endorsed the election, the Lay and Clergy Houses of Synod had not.
Read it all in Anglican Ink
Disloyal Episcopalians are murderers and terrorists, Jefferts Schori claims: The Church of England Newspaper, February 10, 2013 p 7. February 14, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence, Phil Ashey
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Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has denounced her opponents in South Carolina as terrorists and murderers, saying those who opposed her view of church order were “wolves” and false shepherds leading the flock astray.
The 26 Jan 2013 “outrageous” remarks have changed the game in the South Carolina diocesan fight, her critics charge. What had been a dispute over property has become an ideological war with those who do not conform now being branded as evil.
Speaking to national church loyalists at a special convention held 26 Jan 2013 at Grace Church in Charleston, Bishop Jefferts Schori began her remarks with the story of a glider pilot who had entered restricted airspace in South Carolina and found himself harassed by local officials.
“I tell you that story because it’s indicative of attitudes we’ve seen here and in many other places. Somebody decides he knows the law, and oversteps whatever authority he may have to dictate the fate of others who may in fact be obeying the law, and often a law for which this local tyrant is not the judge,” she said.
“It’s not too far from that kind of attitude to citizens’ militias deciding to patrol their towns or the Mexican border for unwelcome visitors. It’s not terribly far from the state of mind evidenced in school shootings, or in those who want to arm school children, or the terrorism that takes oil workers hostage,” the presiding bishop said.
Bishop Jefferts Schori also denounced what she saw as the arbitrary and capricious usurpation of power by local church leaders stating: “Power assumed by one authority figure alone is often a recipe for abuse, tyranny, and corruption. That’s why Jesus challenges us to think about how the shepherd acts. The authentic ones don’t sneak over the wall in the dead of night. They operate transparently, and they work cooperatively with the gate-keeper himself.”
Canon Phil Ashey of the American Anglican Council stated her remarks were “just over the top,” Canon Ashey said, adding that her “anger was not in keeping of any leader of any Christian church.” He called upon the presiding bishop to apologize for remarks.
South Carolina Bishop Mark Lawrence told The Church of England Newspaper the presiding bishop’s remarks were not likely to help matters.
“One of the things I said to the Presiding Bishop when last we spoke is that if she and I could refrain from demonizing one another, regardless of what others around us are saying, we might get somewhere. Based on the words and argument of her recent sermon for the New TEC Diocese in South Carolina, I guess she wasn’t able to do it,” Bishop Lawrence said.
A spokesman for the Presiding Bishop declined to elaborate on the speech stating “As for the Presiding Bishop’s sermon, she did not identify any group in her sermon.”
Probation for Episcopal Church’s Hip Hop Priest: Anglican Ink, February 9, 2013 February 9, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Crime, Hymnody/Liturgy, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Hip-Hop mass, Timothy Holder
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A New Jersey court has sentenced the Episcopal Church’s “Hip-Hop” priest, the Rev. Timothy Holder, to two years’ probation for stealing more than $35,000 from his Atlantic City parish.
On 8 Feb 2013 Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Mark Sandson handed down the sentence to Mr. Holder (57) and ordered him to make restitution to his former parish, the Church of the Ascension. In December he pled guilty to third-degree theft by deception for writing checks on the church’s bank account while serving as rector between 2007 and 2009.
Before moving to the Church of the Ascension, Mr. Holder, who has been on administrative leave from his position as Associate Rector at Christ Church in Toms River, served as vicar of the South Bronx’s Trinity Episcopal Church of Morrisania, where he created the popular “Hip-Hop” services to serve the needs of the local community.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Legal win for breakaway American diocese: The Church of England Newspaper, February 3, 2013 p 6. February 7, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Property Litigation, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Charles vonRosenberg, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina scored a significant victory in its fight with the national Episcopal Church last week after a South Carolina court issued a Temporary Restraining Order forbidding the national church and its allies in South Carolina from using the name, symbols or seal of the diocese.
The 23 Jan 2013 order handed down by Judge Diane Goodstein of the First Judicial Circuit Court blocked the national church from holding a rump meeting of the diocese on 26 January, forcing loyalists to gather as the “Episcopal Church in South Carolina” rather than the “Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina”.
Canon lawyer Allan Haley noted that Judge Goodstein’s order had been “granted ex parte as a matter of urgency, and holds in place only until the Court can hear argument on a preliminary injunction pending trial of the matter” and will expire on 1 Feb 2013.
Mr. Haley stated that he expected the national church’s attorneys to offer a vigorous challenge to the TRO at the 1 Feb hearing. “But it would appear that the court has already found most, if not all, of the case against them,” he added.
On 4 Jan 2013 the trustees of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and 15 congregations filed suit against the national church alleging that its agents had committed identity theft by using its name, symbols and seal and by holding out the Presiding Bishop the “steering committee” of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina as the lawful diocesan ecclesiastical authority. The complaint further alleged the national church had slandered the title to diocesan and congregational property by stating it held an interest in all church property in South Carolina.
An amended complaint filed on 22 Jan, which added 16 additional congregations as plaintiffs, also asked for a TRO from the court. In its request for the TRO the diocese alleged that at the loyalists special convention Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her supporters “intended to make unauthorized corporate changes” to the diocesan constitution and canons, thereby causing the diocese harm.
The diocese stated by this order: “The judge effectively prevents TEC, a voluntary association, and the parishes who support it, from claiming to own or operate the Diocese of South Carolina, an entity that it insists it owns but whose very existence predates The Episcopal Church.”
Bishop Charles vonRosenberg, who was elected at the special convention to lead those Episcopalians in South Carolina who would remain with the national church, told the Church of England Newspaper: “Our intention is to carry out our duties on behalf of The Episcopal Church in South Carolina when we meet at the special convention, and at the same time, we intend to continue to take care in using language which might be offensive to others.”
However others in the loyalist faction called the judge’s decision “bizarre” and suggested improper influence may have been used to sway her decision. The diocese’s lawsuit to protect its name and assets was “unprecedented”, “vindictive” and “mean spirit[ed]” it said, adding that Bishop Lawrence was unfit to serve in the Christian ministry and denounced the majority factions as being “the anti-gay diocese.”
The loyalist faction turned their ire on the judge as well. “Andrew Platte, an attorney for several of the plaintiff congregations and the PECDSC Incorporated, is a recent law clerk for Judge Goodstein and has taken a important role in the recent legal attacks on Episcopalians in the Diocese. He is an associate in the firm of Speights and Runyon, which played a significant role in convincing parishes in the Diocese that the Episcopal Church might be preparing to take their property away.”
Bishop vonRosenberg, however, took an irenic approach to the conflict. Speaking to the State newspaper, the provisional bishop-designate for loyalists in South Carolina said there was hope for reconciliation. “While we have diverged at this point in history on our paths, one day those paths will converge once again,” the bishop said.
Anglican Unscripted Episode 64: February 3, 2013 February 4, 2013
Posted by geoconger in The Episcopal Church, Church of Nigeria, Church of England, Episcopal Church in Jerusalem & the Middle East, South Carolina, Property Litigation, Anglican.TV.Tags: Arab Spring, gay marriage, Joseph Adetiloye, Justin Welby, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence, Mouneer Anis
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In this week’s episode of Anglican Unscripted your host discuss the adventure (misadventures) of Presiding Bishop Jefferts-Schori as she descended onto the city of Charleston last week. Allan Haley examines the legal details of the preemptive strike launched against TEC and Schori and how this battle was won. There is also much international news with stories on Egypt and Nigeria and no AU is complete without a story from Canterbury with Peter Ould – this time he talks about the coming wave of Same-Sex Marriage in England . Tweet #AU64 Comments to AnglicanUnscripted@gmail.com
Mississippi diocese to offer gay blessings: Anglican Ink, February 2, 2013 February 3, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Diocese of Mississippi, Duncan Gray, gay marriage
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The Episcopal churches in Mississippi will be permitted to bless same-sex unions under a scheme put forward by Bishop Duncan M. Gray, III.
In his presidential address to the 186th annual meeting of the diocese on 1 Feb 2013, Bishop Gray said congregations could not offer gay marriages, and were not free to offer blessing of gay unions at will.
However congregational leaders “will be free to enter into a process of prayer and study on the matter. They will be asked to submit the design and results of their study and also to explain to the Bishop how the blessing of same gender unions would enhance the congregation’s missional efforts,” the diocesan website said.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
TEC attorneys will not contest South Carolina restraining order: Anglican Ink, January 31, 2013 January 31, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Property Litigation, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Diane Goodstein, Mark Lawrence
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A South Carolina court has made permanent the temporary restraining order entered on 23 Jan 2013 in the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina case. On 31 Jan 2013 Judge Diane Goodstein issued a Temporary Injunction that supplanted her Temporary Restraining Order which forbade any person or entity from claiming to be or using the name, symbols and seal of the diocese save for Bishop Mark Lawrence and the officers of the diocese.
Attorneys for the Episcopal Church declined to contest the TRO at the hearing scheduled for 1 Feb 2013. The Temporary Injunction will stand until the litigation is concluded, however, either party may petition the court to modify or remove the ban.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Presiding Bishop denouces schismatics as terrorists and murderers: Anglican Ink, January 29, 2013 January 29, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Property Litigation, South Carolina.Tags: Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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A spokesman for Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has denied suggestions that her sermon denouncing as terrorists and murderers those who did not share her views on the polity of the Episcopal Church was directed at Bishop Mark J. Lawrence or the members of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.
Speaking to national church loyalists at a special convention held 26 Jan 2013 at Grace Church in Charleston, Bishop Jefferts Schori characterized her opponents as “wolves” and false shepherds.
She denounced the arbitrary use of power in church affairs, stating: “Power assumed by one authority figure alone is often a recipe for abuse, tyranny, and corruption. That’s why Jesus challenges us to think about how the shepherd acts. The authentic ones don’t sneak over the wall in the dead of night. They operate transparently, and they work cooperatively with the gate-keeper himself.”
The presiding bishop also shared a story of a glider pilot who had entered restricted airspace in South Carolina and found himself harassed by local officials – a situation not unlike the dispute between the diocese and the national church she observed.
“I tell you that story because it’s indicative of attitudes we’ve seen here and in many other places. Somebody decides he knows the law, and oversteps whatever authority he may have to dictate the fate of others who may in fact be obeying the law, and often a law for which this local tyrant is not the judge. It’s not too far from that kind of attitude to citizens’ militias deciding to patrol their towns or the Mexican border for unwelcome visitors. It’s not terribly far from the state of mind evidenced in school shootings, or in those who want to arm school children, or the terrorism that takes oil workers hostage,” the presiding bishop said.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
South Carolina loyalists defy ban on using diocesan name and shield: Anglican Ink, January 25, 2013 January 25, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Property Litigation, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Diane Goodstein, Episcopal Forum of South Carolina, Mark Lawrence
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The loyalist faction within the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina has unleashed a torrent of abuse against Bishop Mark Lawrence and the diocesan leadership as well as Judge Diane Goodstein following her order of 23 Jan 2013 blocking them from using the name, symbols or seal of the diocese.
Compliance with the court’s order has also been spotty. On Wednesday, Bishop Charles vonRosenberg told Anglican Ink the loyalist group would comply with the court’s order, and a spokesman for the South Carolina steering committee, Holly Behre, told the Associated Press they would honor Judge Goodstein’s ruling and will adopt a name that will comply with the spirit of the court order until the matter is resolved.
However compliance with the Order, which went into effect at 5:11 pm on Wednesday has been slow. The group’s website www.episcopalofsc.org did not remove the shield or the claim to be the Episcopal Dicoese of South Carolina until later Thursday.
As of our going to press, the loyalists group’s fundraising site, scstewardship.com, continues to display the diocesan shield and holds itself out to be the true Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina, in apparent disregard of Judge Goodstein’s order which stated in part: “No individual, organization, association or entity, whether incorporated or not, may use, assume, or adopt in any way, directly or indirectly, the registered names and the seal or mark of The Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of South Carolina.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Malicious prosecution warnings for Episcopal clergy: Anglican Ink, January 25, 2013 January 25, 2013
Posted by geoconger in 77th General Convention, Anglican Ink, Canon Law, The Episcopal Church.Tags: CanonLawyer Inc., Michael Rehill, Title IV Ecclesiastical Discipline
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Michael Rehill
A bulk email offering assistance akin to a pre-paid legal services plan has refocused the Episcopal Church’s attention on flaws within the new Title IV Ecclesiastical Discipline canons.
A 17 January 2013 email from CanonLawyer, Inc., an organization set up by long-time General Convention deputy and the former chancellor of the Diocese of Newark, Michael Rehill, elicited a wave of chatter amongst the clergy of the Episcopal Church after it warned of the risks of malicious prosecution under the new code.
In the personally addressed email, Mr. Rehill states: “I am writing to you because you are a Member of the Clergy of the Episcopal Church, and you are at risk of facing a proceeding under Title IV of the Canons of The Episcopal Church.”
He states that “as a result of recent revisions to Title IV, many more Members of the Clergy are now facing ecclesiastical discipline,” adding “You need to be prepared before it happens to you.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Settlement reached in Episcopal misconduct cases: The Church of England Newspaper, January 20, 2013 p 6. January 25, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, Ecclesiastical Trials, Ecclesiology, Fort Worth, Quincy, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Fort Worth 9, Katharine Jefferts Schori
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A settlement agreement has been reached in the disciplinary proceedings of 9 American bishops accused of misconduct for holding and propounding contrary views on church history and polity to those of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.
Last week representatives of the accusers: Bishops C. Wallis Ohl, Jr., and John Buchanan, met with representatives of the accused: Bishops Peter H. Beckwith, Maurice M. Benitez, John W. Howe, Paul E. Lambert, William H. Love, D. Bruce MacPherson, Daniel H. Martins, Edward L. Salmon, Jr, and James M. Stanton, three observers from the House of Bishops: Mary Gray-Reeves, Edward S. Little, Michael Milliken to sign a “conciliation” agreement.
The nine had been charged with fraud, financial misconduct, teaching false doctrine and failing to inform on their fellow bishops who held opinions on church order contrary to those advocated by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori. The form the misconduct took was in having endorsed an amicus brief filed in the Texas Supreme Court in the Diocese of Fort Worth case and signing an affidavit in the Diocese of Quincy case.
The text of the settlement agreement — mediated by Prof. John Douglass of the University Of Richmond School of Law following a 8-9 Jan 2013 meeting — has not been released so far as it must be signed by all parties and received the imprimatur of Bishop Jefferts Schori.
A statement from the national church’s press office noted the proceedings were closed and no news bulletins would be released by the parties, however sources at the meeting report the final document is an “amicable” resolution to the dispute.
Court blocks loyalist convention for Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina: Anglican Ink, January 23, 2013 January 24, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Property Litigation, South Carolina.Tags: Diane Goodstein, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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Judge Diane Goodstein
The First Judicial Circuit Court in South Carolina has issued a Temporary Restraining Order forbidding any “individual, organization, association or entity” from using the name, symbols or seal of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina – save for Bishop Mark J. Lawrence and the trustees of the diocese.
The 23 January 2013 order handed down by Judge Diane Goodstein effectively blocks the Episcopal Church and its allies from electing a bishop and standing committee for the minority faction loyal to the national church for the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina.
However, canon lawyer Allan Haley notes the ruling does not prevent those in the diocese who wish to remain affiliated with the national Episcopal Church “from meeting, but they will have to adopt a different name.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Restraining Order filed against Episcopal Church in SC case: Anglican Ink, January 23, 2013 January 23, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Property Litigation, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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The First Judicial Circuit Court in South Carolina has issued a Temporary Restraining Order banning Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her allies from using the name, symbols of identity of the “Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina”.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
15 more parishes join lawsuit against the Episcopal Church January 23, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Property Litigation, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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The Rt. Rev. Mark J. Lawrence
The Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina reports that 15 further congregations have joined it in their 4 Jan 2013 lawsuit against the national Episcopal Church.
The 22 Jan statement reported that of the dioceses congregations, 31 had joined the lawsuit against the national church, 13 congregations were supporting Bishop Mark Lawrence and the diocese against the national church but had not yet joined the litigation, nine missions and two parishes had not declared how they would act, while eight parishes and eight missions had indicated they would remain affiliated with the national Episcopal Church.
“We are saddened that legal action is necessary to protect our members from an organization that uses the threat of legal action as a cudgel to keep its parishes in line,” Bishop Lawrence said.
First printed in Anglican Ink.
Canterbury gun control plea: The Church of England Newspaper, January 13, 2013 p 5. January 21, 2013
Posted by geoconger in The Episcopal Church, Church of England Newspaper, Connecticut, Crime.Tags: Gregory Rickel, gun control, Rowan Williams, Sandy Hook shooting
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The Archbishop of Canterbury has joined a chorus of American church leaders calling for stricter gun control laws in the United States following last month’s Connecticut school shooting.
In his final “Thought for the Day” broadcast as Archbishop of Canterbury on BBC Radio 4, Dr. Williams acknowledged that by itself gun control will not end violence, but their strict regulation would curtail it.
“A week after the horrific killings of the schoolchildren of Sandy Hook in Connecticut, most of us are still struggling to get our minds around such a nightmare,” Dr. Williams said, adding that “nearly 6,000 children and teenagers were killed by firearms in the USA in just two years.”
The problem of “gang culture” was not unique to America, he noted, but “in the US, the question is, of course, about gun laws, one of the most polarising issues in American politics.”
“And there is one thing often said by defenders of the American gun laws that ought to make us think about wider questions. ‘It’s not guns that kill, it’s people.’ Well, yes, in a sense. But it makes a difference to people what weapons are at hand for them to use – and, even more, what happens to people in a climate where fear is rampant and the default response to frightening or unsettling situations or personal tensions is violence or the threat of violence. If all you have is a hammer, it’s sometimes said, everything looks like a nail. If all you have is a gun, everything looks like a target,” the archbishop said.
Last week the Bishop of Olympia, the Rt. Rev. Gregory Rickel joined the Bishop of Washington and Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori in calls for the government to review gun laws.
The Seattle-based bishop wrote that in the United States, “gun violence is a slow growing cancer which we have had the luxury, by and large, to ignore or at the very least show little attention to. Sadly, it has taken the loss of 20 of the youngest among us, the ones with the least power, to get our attention.”
“Up until that tragedy in Connecticut, we were starting to get used to school shootings. Will we get used to this too?” he asked.
Bishop Rickel joined Dr. Williams in rejecting the arguments put forward by the hunting and shooting community. He stated the National Rifle Associations “solution is not surprising: arm more people. That solution grows out of a belief in the inevitability of a heavily armed society, which they have helped create. We are now the most armed nation in the world.”
The bishop said he was “not against the end of all guns. That, at this point, is probably unrealistic. But, I am very much for rational regulation of them.
Dr. Williams observed that “if it’s true that if all you have is a gun, everything looks like a target.”
The “control of the weapons trade is a start,” he said, towards ending the violence.
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper-
South Carolina dispute goes to court: The Church of England Newspaper, January 13, 2013 p 6. January 17, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Church of England, Church of England Newspaper, South Carolina.Tags: Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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The Diocese of South Carolina has filed a lawsuit against the Episcopal Church seeking a ban on the use of its name and seal by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her allies, and asking the civil courts to confirm that it had lawfully withdrawn from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
The 4 Jan 2013 complaint filed in the First Judicial Circuit Court in Dorchester County by the trustees of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and 16 parishes asks the civil court settle the legal and ecclesiological question of the locus of authority in the Episcopal Church. Since taking office in 2006, Bishop Jefferts Schori has argued authority in the church is vested in the General Convention and her office, rejecting the traditional view that authority resides in the dioceses with limited powers delegated to the national church.
The 65-page complaint addresses similar issues before the Texas Supreme Court which is reviewing the case of the Diocese of Fort Worth and lower courts in California and Illinois addressing the secession of the dioceses of San Joaquin and Quincy.
The pleading alleges three causes of action by the diocese against the national church. It alleges the national church has claimed the “right to ownership and possession” of $500 million of diocesan and congregational property; the national church has unlawfully used the diocese’s name and registered service marks; and that the national church “persons under its direction and control” had appropriated the diocesan seal.
Mr. Thomas Tisdale, Bishop Jefferts Schori’s attorney in South Carolina, declined to comment on the pleadings. A spokesman for the presiding bishop told the Church of England Newspaper “the Episcopal Church has not received the legal papers in any such lawsuit in South Carolina and therefore cannot comment at this time.”
The pleading asks the court to step into the dispute between South Carolina and the national church following months of skirmishing that have included the 17 Oct 2012 suspension and subsequent dismissal of Bishop Mark Lawrence from the ministry by Bishop Jefferts Schori, the 15 Nov 2012 secession of the diocese, and the creation of a loyalist group in the diocese, acting under the authority of the presiding bishop, that has claimed the name, rights, property and interest of the diocese.
In a press statement reporting the news of the lawsuit, the diocese said it acted to prevent the national church from “hijacking” its name and assets.
“Like our colonial forefathers, we are pursuing the freedom to practice our faith as we see fit, not as it is dictated to us by a self-proclaimed religious authority who threatens to take our property unless we relinquish our beliefs,” Bishop Lawrence said.
The Rev. Jim Lewis, Canon to the Ordinary of South Carolina stated “many of our parishes are among the oldest operating churches in the nation. They and this Diocese predate the establishment of The Episcopal Church. We want to protect these properties from a blatant land grab.”
“We have existed as an association since 1785. We incorporated in 1973; adopted our current legal name … in 1987; and we disassociated from the Episcopal Church in October of 2012. The Episcopal Church has every right to have a presence in the area served by our Diocese – but it does not have a right to use our identity. The Episcopal Church must create a new entity.”
Clifton Daniel elected Bishop of Pennsylvania: Anglican Ink, January 15, 2013 January 15, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Pennsylvania.Tags: Charles Bennison, Clifton Daniel, Diocese of East Carolina
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Clifton Daniel, III
A special convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania has elected the Rt. Rev. Clifton Daniel III to serve as provisional bishop of one of the Episcopal Church’s oldest and largest dioceses.
On 12 Jan 2013 the diocese elected by unanimous acclamation Bishop Daniel, the resigned Bishop of East Carolina, to serve as bishop for two years, or until the election of a diocesan bishop.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Bishop of Massachusetts issues call for the election of a co-adjutor: Anglican Ink, January 15, 2013 January 15, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Massachusetts.Tags: M. Thomas Shaw
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The Rt. Rev M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE
The Bishop of Massachusetts has written to his diocese announcing the call for the election of his successor. In a letter dated 15 Jan 2013 the Rt. Rev. M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE stated that he was “turning 68 this year. From my prayer and conversation with my community, friends and family, I have decided to call for the election of my successor, a bishop coadjutor. The election will take place at a special convention proposed for April 5, 2014.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Women clergy under review for the ACNA: Anglican Ink, January 11, 2013 January 11, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Anglican Ink, House of Bishops, Women Priests.comments closed
More bishops, fewer dioceses and the future of women clergy were amongst the main topics of debate at the Anglican Church of North America’s College of Bishops meeting this week in Orlando.
Bishops from the conservative province in waiting in North America in the Anglican Communion approved the election of two additional bishops for the PEAR-USA Network. The Rev. Quigg Lawrence will lead the Atlantic Regional Network and the Rev. Ken Ross the Western Regional Network, while the Very Rev. Clark Lowenfield was elected bishop of the Diocese of the Western Gulf Coast – a diocese in formation.
The bishops also confirmed the election of the Rt. Rev. Charlie Masters as bishop coadjutor of the Anglican Network in Canada and approved the translation of the Rt. Rev. Frank Lyons from the Diocese of Bolivia to the Diocese of Pittsburgh as assistant bishop.
Time was also spent in mending fences amongst the College between the three former members of the Anglican Mission in America and the wider ACNA, following the protracted break up of the group.
A report on overlapping dioceses and episcopal jurisdictions was also presented to the College. A communique from the meeting stated the ACNA sought to bring the church into conformity “with historic Anglican practice. The goal of the work is to organize each region for the long-term sustainability of the movement in recognizable, godly Anglican Church structures.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Tentative settlement reached in the Fort Worth 7 and Quincy 3 cases: Anglican Ink, January 9, 2013 January 10, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, House of Bishops, Property Litigation, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Fort Worth 7, John Douglass, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Quincy 3
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A tentative settlement has been reached in the “Fort Worth 7” and “Quincy 3” cases, sources close to the proceedings report. Details of the agreement will not been released until all parties endorse the agreement, the sources report, but the disposition of the dispute is being characterized as “amicable” AI has learned.
If the agreement is ratified, the settlement will conclude the largest mass disciplinary proceeding launched against bishops of the Episcopal Church.
In emails dated 2 and 19 Oct 2012, the Intake Officer for the House of Bishops and aide to Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the Rt. Rev. F. Clayton Matthews informed nine bishops they had been charged with fraud, financial misconduct, teaching false doctrine and failing to inform on their fellow bishops who held opinions on church order contrary to those advocated by Bishop Jefferts Schori.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
South Carolina fires first salvo in legal battle with TEC: Anglican Ink, January 5, 2013 January 5, 2013
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Property Litigation, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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Bishop Mark Lawrence
A South Carolina court has been asked “Who and what are Episcopalians and how is that church organized?” after the Diocese of South Carolina filed a lawsuit yesterday against the national Episcopal Church. The 65-page complaint asks the court to issue an injunction banning Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and her allies in South Carolina from using the name or presuming to act on behalf of the diocese and further asks the court to affirm the legality of the diocese’s secession from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church of the United States of America.
Filed on 4 January 2013 in the First Judicial Circuit Court in Dorchester County by the trustees of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina and 16 parishes, the complaint asks the civil courts to adjudicate the same general questions currently before the Texas Supreme Court in the Diocese of Fort Worth case. South Carolina has asked the court to legal scrutiny Bishop Jefferts Schori’s claim the Episcopal Church of the United States of America is a hierarchical body with final authority vested in the national church.
Yesterday’s action follows a generation of sparing between liberals and conservatives in the Episcopal Church over issues of doctrine and discipline. However, the legal and ecclesiological issues of diocesan autonomy and national authority arose in 2006 after Bishop Jefferts Schori was elected presiding bishop. Unlike her predecessor Frank Griswold who told the Diocese of Louisiana that ultimate authority rested in the diocese, Bishop Jefferts Schori has argued that ultimate authority resides in the General Convention and in her office.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Camp Bible released in time for Christmas: The Church of England Newspaper, December 24, 2012 January 2, 2013
Posted by geoconger in The Episcopal Church, Church of England Newspaper, Biblical Interpretation, California.Tags: Queen James Bible
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A “gay-friendly” version of the Authorized Version or King James Version of the Scriptures has been released anonymously in the United States. The “Queen James Bible” re-writes passages of the Old and New Testament to omit phrases that gay activists find offensive.
However, the anonymous publication may be a spoof. News of the new Bible was released via a PR firm. PinkNews, a gay activist news site, states the editor of the QJB is the Rev. J. Pearson of Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in San Francisco.
However, the book has not been registered with the Library of Congress in Washington, the website’s ownership has been hidden from review and does not name any of the editors – and no “J Pearson” exists on the rolls of the Episcopal Church serving in the Diocese of California.
An internet publication, Digital Journal, citing an anti-gay activist website, quoted the Rev. J. Pearson in its report on the book saying he, or she, believed: “Homosexuality was first overtly mentioned in the Bible in 1946 in the Revised Standard Version. There is no mention of or reference to homosexuality in any Bible prior to this – only interpretations have been made.”
The Queen James Bible made eight changes to the text of the KJV, which is in the public domain and may be freely adapted unlike modern translations. Among the changes were Leviticus 18:22:
KJV: Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.
QJV: Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind in the temple of Molech: it is an abomination. (Page 75)
Romans 1:27
KJV: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.
QJV: Men with men working that which is pagan and unseemly. For this cause God gave the idolators up unto vile affections, receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. (Page 545)
1 Timothy 1:10
KJV: For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.
QJV: For whoremongers, for them that defile themselves, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine. (Page 575)
The Queen James Bible website states the new version “seeks to resolve interpretive ambiguity in the Bible as it pertains to homosexuality: We edited those eight verses in a way that makes homophobic interpretations impossible.”
It added the name Queen James was appropriate because James I was “a well-known bisexual. Though he did marry a woman, his many gay relationships were so well-known that amongst some of his friends and court, he was known as “Queen James.” It is in his great debt and honor that we name The Queen James Bible so.”
In addition to its lack of provenance, uncertain linkage to a phantom Episcopal clergyman in San Francisco and its anonymous website, the camp language of the advertisement suggests the Queen James Bible may be a hoax.
“The QJB is a big, fabulous Bible,” the website states adding: “You can’t choose your sexuality, but you can choose Jesus. Now you can choose a Bible, too.”
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Connecticut school shooting leaves America in mourning: The Church of England Newspaper, December 23, 2012 p 7. December 28, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of North America, Church of England Newspaper, Connecticut, Crime, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Adam Lanza, Newtown shooting
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Church leaders in the United States have responded with horror to last week’s Connecticut school shooting, calling upon Anglicans to turn towards God in prayer in response to the murder of 26 people – including 20 school children.
On 14 Dec 2012, Adam Lanza (20), shot and killed his mother at their home and then proceeded to her workplace, the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Police have yet to release a timeline of events, but armed with a variety of pistols taken from his mother’s home, Lanza entered the school killing six teachers and administrators and the members of his mother’s class – 20 children ranging in age from 5 to 7 years of age.
Lanza then took his own life before police arrived on the scene. The motive for the killings is unknown as are details of the killer’s life – though acquaintances described the young man as troubled.
Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church in North America urged his flock to pray for the victims and their families. “Please join us in praying for the victims of and families affected by Friday’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. “Grant us grace fearlessly to contend against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and, that we may reverently use our freedom, help us to employ it in the maintenance of justice in our communities and among the nations,” he wrote.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori wrote the Episcopal Church grieved with those who had died and mourned the loss “of lives so young and innocent. We grieve that the means of death are so readily available to people who lack the present capacity to find other ways of responding to their own anger and grief. We know that God’s heart is broken over this tragedy, and the tragedies that unfold each and every day across this nation. And we pray that this latest concentration of shooting deaths in one event will awaken us to the unnoticed number of children and young people who die senselessly across this land every day.”
Speaking at a memorial service in Newtown High School on 16 December, President Barack Obama said he was “very mindful that words cannot match the depths of your sorrow, but whatever measure of comfort we can provide, we will provide. … Newtown, you are not alone.”
“These tragedies must end, and to end them we must change,” the president said, saying he would call upon law enforcement and mental health experts to “prevent another tragedy like this.”
The shooting has prompted a national debate over the causes of “rampage” killings, with some blaming a changing culture, others loose gun control laws, while others have questioned state programs of closing state mental hospitals in favor of community care.
In statement released after the shootings on Friday, the Bishop of Washington Mariann Budde announced that she was “calling on our national leaders to enact more effective gun control measures. We know from experience that such calls go unheeded. But what if this time, you and I took up this issue and wouldn’t put it down until something was done? . . . Today we grieve, but soon we act.”
However, conservative columnist Mona Charen argued the problem also lay in failed health policies as “misplaced civil libertarianism and romanticization of mental illness led to deinstitutionalization” of the mentally ill so that “now, 95 percent of the inpatient beds we had in 1955 are gone.”
There were a “a small subset of mentally ill people who are dangerous. They are responsible for an estimated 50 percent of rampage killings. In the name of personal autonomy, we have made it almost impossible to force them to get treatment. The horrifying consequences are all around us,” she said.
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Jane Holmes Dixon dead at 75: Anglican Ink, December 25, 2012 December 26, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Washington.Tags: Jane Holmes Dixon
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The Rt. Rev. Jane Holmes Dixon
The Bishop of Washington, the Rt. Rev. Mariann Budde reports the former suffragan Bishop of Washington, the Rt. Rev. Jane Holmes Dixon died in her sleep during the night of December 24/25.
In a statement printed on the diocesan website, Bishop Budde wrote:
“I write this Christmas Day with sad news. Bishop Jane Dixon died in her sleep early this morning after a spending a joyful Christmas Eve with her family. Her death comes as a shock to her beloved husband of 52 years, Dixie, to their children and grandchildren, and to all of us blessed to have known Jane as a friend, mentor, and colleague.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Archbishop of Canterbury calls upon America to enact strict gun control: Anglican Ink, December 22, 2012 December 22, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, Connecticut, Crime.Tags: Adam Lanza, gun control, Newtown shooting, Rowan Williams
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The Archbishop of Canterbury has rejected the argument that “guns do not kill people, people kill people” stating the Connecticut school shooting was facilitated by the easy access to firearms permitted by U.S. laws.
In his final “Thought for the Day” broadcast as Archbishop of Canterbury on BBC Radio 4, Dr. Williams acknowledged that by itself gun control will not end violence, but their strict regulation would curtail it.
“A week after the horrific killings of the schoolchildren of Sandy Hook in Connecticut, most of us are still struggling to get our minds around such a nightmare,” Dr. Williams said, adding that “nearly 6,000 children and teenagers were killed by firearms in the USA in just two years.”
The problem of “gang culture” was not unique to America, he noted, but “in the US, the question is, of course, about gun laws, one of the most polarising issues in American politics.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Anglican Communion ignores Mark Lawrence’s deposition: Anglican Ink, December 20, 2012 December 21, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: David Moyer, George Carey, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence, Rowan Williams
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Bishop Mark Lawrence of South Carolina
The leaders of the Global South coalition of Anglican provinces have written to Bishop Mark Lawrence of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina stating they do not recognize the validity of Presiding Bishop Katharine Jeffert Schori’s purported deposition of him from episcopal office and the ordained ministry.
In a letter dated 14 December 2012, Archbishop Ian Ernest of the Indian Ocean, Bishop Mouneer Anis of Jerusalem and the Middle East, Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria, Archbishop Eliud Wabukala of Kenya, Presiding Bishop Tito Zavala of the Southern Cone, Archbishop Stephen Than Myint Oo of Burma, and Archbishop Bolly Lapok of Southeast Asia said:
“We want to assure you that we recognize your Episcopal orders and your legitimate Episcopal oversight of the Diocese of South Carolina within the Anglican Communion.”
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
The Guardian does not get Tim Scott: Get Religion December 18, 2012 December 18, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Get Religion, Politics, South Carolina.Tags: Guardian, Republican Party, Tim Scott
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Amongst your GetReligion correspondents I was the last to board the twitter train. Now I knew about this micro-blogging tool and had heard of tumblr and instagram — and I even had a Facebook page. But I was slow to utilize these communication tools in my reporting. I cannot explain this reticence, for since I was a child I have been fascinated by these tools.
One of my memories of childhood was accompanying my father to his club in the city. I would wait for him in the smoking room where amidst the smell of strong cigars I would sit by the stock ticker and teletype machine and read the news as it came over the wire. I still remember the thrill of hearing the bell ring three times and the machine begin to chatter as it printed a breaking story.
Half a life time has passed since those days. Stock tickers, teletype and Telex machines are gone and I expect fax machines will soon pass away. Yet the thrill they gave me of instant access to a wider world I find in Twitter. This item from Byron York of National Review caught my eye.
Scott begins with moment of silence for Newtown and then says of appointment: ‘Thank you to my lord and savior, Jesus Christ.’
12:15 PM – 17 Dec 12 ·
Byron York ?York was tweeting the press conference where South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley announced that she was appointing Rep. Tim Scott to serve out the term of Sen. Jim DeMint. Approximately 45 minutes earlier I had read a breaking story from the Guardian on the news of the appointment.
Printed on the Guardian‘s website at 11:26 AM, the article entitled “Tim Scott appointed to fill Jim DeMint’s Senate seat for South Carolina” was a introduction of the new senator to Britain — the first African American Republican Senator in 30 years and the first from the old Confederacy since Reconstruction. The 700-word story was thorough. It reviewed his political career in Charleston and Congress, support from the Tea Party movement and speculated on his future prospects.
The Guardian also spoke to Scott’s personal story.
Some in the Republican party have drawn parallels between Scott and Barack Obama; his rise has been nurtured in recent years by the Republican party’s leadership, impressed by the carefully spoken and deeply conservative Charleston native, raised, like Obama, by a single mother. … Born in Charleston, Scott’s parents divorced when he was seven, and he attributes his belief in conservative values to his mother, a nurse.
“By the time I entered high school, I was completely off track. My mother was working hard, trying to help me to realize that there was a brighter future, but I really couldn’t see it,” Scott wrote in 2010 at the launch of his congressional campaign.
Then, he says, he had the good fortune to meet the owner of a Chick-fil-A fast food franchise next door to the movie theatre where he worked. “He taught me that if you want to receive, you have to first give. Embedded in that conversation, I came to realize, was the concept that my mother was teaching me about individual responsibility.”
The article closes with Scott’s decision not to join the Congressional Black Caucus.
Thanking the Democratic-dominated caucus for its invitation, Scott said: “My campaign was never about race.”
All in all this was nicely done, up to a point. It gives British readers some flavor of the newest American Senator and rising star of the Republican Party. Yet, the story is only half told of Tim Scott.
What role has faith played in Scott’s life? What were the values taught to him by his conservative mother? Should not the mention of Chick-fil-A have rung some bells in the Guardian reporter’s head? Taken in conjunction with Scott’s avowal of his Christian faith at the press conference, the absence of faith from the Guardian story about Tim Scott leaves the story half finished.
Now the article is not faith free. It mentions Scott’s work as a county commissioner in having the Ten Commandments publicly displayed outside the council chambers. But the Guardian describes this action as being a regional political affectation. And curiously it describes his appointment to the Senate seat in the lede of the article as a “remarkable turnaround”. Yet it also notes:
In 2012 he was elected unopposed, winning 99% of the vote, with policies mirroring those of his party in the South: deep opposition to tax increases, Obamacare, unions, abortion and immigration reform.
In what way was Scott’s appointment a turnaround? Winning reelection with 99 per cent of the vote speaks not to political misfortune. The bottom line with this article is that although it has most of the facts, it misses the story. The Guardian does not understand American politics as seen by its discussion of the Republican Party of the South and in the role faith plays in the life of Tim Scott (and for many Americans for that matter.) Not the best outing from the Guardian, I’m afraid.
First published at GetReligion.
South Carolina schism descending into farce: The Church of England Newspaper, December 16, 2012 p 6. December 13, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has defrocked the Bishop of South Carolina, writing on 5 Dec 2012 that she had accepted the “voluntary renunciation of ministry” of Bishop Mark J. Lawrence.
However, Bishop Lawrence has responded that he felt no “need to argue or rebut” the accusations and actions as they were ridiculous.
In her press release announcing the move, Bishop Jefferts Schori said that acting under the terms of Title III, Canon 12, Section 7 the Presiding Bishop “has accepted the renunciation of the ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church of Mark Lawrence as made in his public address on November 17 and she has released him from his orders in this Church.”
Bisho Lawrence responded: “Quite simply I have not renounced my orders as a deacon, priest or bishop any more than I have abandoned the Church of Jesus Christ—But as I am sure you are aware, the Diocese of South Carolina has canonically and legally disassociated from The Episcopal Church. We took this action long before today’s attempt at renunciation of orders, therein making it superfluous,” the bishop said.
The announcement released by the church’s press office, the Episcopal News Service, said “pastoral outreach to Lawrence had been ongoing for a period of several years, including up to the time he announced his intentions” to withdraw from the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
“Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori along with members of her staff took steps to work with Lawrence. In addition, repeated attempts by the Bishops of Province IV and notably Bishop Andrew Waldo of Upper South Carolina were made to discuss the situation with Lawrence and to offer help in achieving a resolution.”
Bishop Lawrence’s oral statement to the 17 Nov 2012 meeting of his diocesan convention that: “We have withdrawn from that Church that we along with six other dioceses help to organize centuries ago;” and “We have moved on. With the Standing Committee’s resolution of disassociation the fact is accomplished: legally and canonically;” was evidence of his having abandoned the ministry of the Episcopal Church.
However, the presiding bishop’s claim to have received the renunciation of Bishop Lawrence is at odds with the language of the canon. The canon used to depose the bishop without trial states: “If any Bishop of this Church shall declare, in writing, to the Presiding Bishop a renunciation of the ordained Ministry of this Church, and a desire to be removed therefrom, it shall be the duty of the Presiding Bishop to record the declaration and request so made.”
Canon lawyer Allan Haley observed that “Bishop Lawrence (a) did not address any writing to the Presiding Bishop; (b) did not renounce his ordained Ministry; and (c) did not request to be removed from that Ministry. The elaborately crafted press release from the Public Affairs Office is simply a poor attempt to cover over a huge, public lie.”
That “huge, public lie has been told simply for the sake of the Presiding Bishop’s and ECUSA’s own convenience,” he said.
Members of the Presiding Bishop’s Council of Advice supported the use of the abandonment canon against Bishop Lawrence even though he met none of the criteria for its use.
The ends of removing Bishop Lawrence from the ministry of the Episcopal Church justified the means taken by the presiding bishop, Bishop Dean Wolfe of Kansas told The Church of England Newspaper. “I believe, and Canonical experts confirm, this (along with a variety of other statements made by Bishop Lawrence) constitutes renunciation,” he said.
On 8 Dec 2012 a group of national church loyalists in the Diocese of South Carolina known as the “steering committee” reported that Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori would “convene” a special meeting of the diocesan convention to elect a “provisional bishop” to replace Bishop Lawrence.
In their press statement, the steering committee explained that “Episcopalians in the diocese are without a bishop after the Presiding Bishop accepted the renunciation of Mark Lawrence on December 5 and released him from ordained ministry. The announcements by local church leaders that they have left The Episcopal Church has left the Diocese with no Standing Committee, which normally would lead a diocese in the absence of a bishop.”
This assertion, however, has been rejected by the diocese. South Carolina civil law and the canons of the Episcopal Church do not permit the presiding bishop to “declare” a standing committee to be vacant.
Under South Carolina civil and canon law, a quorum of clergy and lay delegates to the convention must be present for its actions to have legal force. If only those 5 to 12 congregations who have expressed reservations about the withdrawal of the diocese form the national church attend the convention, any action taken will be void under civil and canon law.
However, appeals to the rule of law and church order have so far not halted the presiding bishop’s campaign against conservatives in the Episcopal Church. Objections to similar “rump” conventions held in Fort Worth, San Joaquin and Quincy and extra-canonical defrocking of bishops have gone unheeded by the wider Episcopal Church. However, the Texas Supreme Court is expected to rule shortly on the legality of the loyalist group in Fort Worth claiming it is the true Episcopal Diocese.
Canonical legerdemain and unlawful usurpation of authority by the presiding bishop in the aim of a political agenda were a sad commentary on the moral state of the Episcopal Church, Bishop Lawrence observed.
The presiding bishop would go to any lengths to exterminate dissent and would twist words to achieve her purposes. “She and her advisers will say I have said what I have not said in ways that I have not said them even while they cite words from my Bishop’s Address” to the South Carolina special convention, he said.
But Bishop Lawrence reported that he was “heartened” by the support he had received by the “vast majority” within the diocese and from the “majority of Anglicans around the world” who have “expressed in so many ways that they consider me an Anglican Bishop in good standing and consider this Diocese of South Carolina to be part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. “
“So we move on—onward and upward,” Bishop Lawrence said.
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Mediation plea for South Carolina crisis: The Church of England Newspaper, December 9, 2012 p 6. December 12, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Church of England Newspaper, South Carolina.Tags: Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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The Episcopal Church’s embattled conservatives have called upon Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and Bishop Mark Lawrence to engage in mediation to resolve the impasse over the secession of the Diocese of South Carolina.
On 14 Nov 2012, 12 bishops released a statement expressing their grief over “recent developments in the life of the Episcopal Church, specifically in the Diocese of South Carolina” called “upon all concerned to seek a non-juridical solution to these difficult matters, and not to be limited by our canonical procedures.”
“Our hope, indeed our prayer,” the Communion Partners coalition said, was “that this painful moment in the life of the church will lead us to new and creative ways to discover Christ’s reconciling love, and to live together in one Body in the midst of our differences.”
In a paper released last week, the Anglican Communion Institute urged the parties to take up the conflict resolution programme created by the Windsor Continuation Group (WCG).
Formed by the Archbishop of Canterbury following his Advent Letter to the Primates in December 2007, Dr. Rowan Williams asked the WCG to advise him how best to implement the recommendations of the Windsor Report, how best to carry forward the Windsor Process in the life of the Communion, and to consult on the “unfinished business” of the Report. At the Lambeth Conference 2008, it offered a series of initial Observations to the meeting to facilitate conversations.
The ACI stated the WCG recommended that in cases of theological dispute between a diocese and province “a provisional holding arrangement” for the diocese be crafted that would “enable dialogue to take place and which will be revisited on the conclusion of the Covenant Process.”
The ACI argued that there was a window of opportunity open to resolve the crisis. In his address to the South Carolina special convention which affirmed the diocese’s withdrawal from the General Convention, Bishop Lawrence said he remained open to meeting with Bishop Jefferts Schori to “seek new and creative solutions.”
“We suggest that the concept already proffered by the Windsor Continuation Group and accepted in principle by the Communion’s Instruments (and by TEC’s Presiding Bishop) might offer one possible creative solution,” the ACI said. “Litigation could be avoided, those dissenting in the diocese could receive immediate pastoral care from the Diocese of Upper South Carolina, the current status quo in South Carolina would be recognized and contained, and hope for eventual reconciliation not completely abandoned.”
The Archbishop of Canterbury’s office has declined to respond to queries about the split in South Carolina, but sources report that Dr. Williams and Bishop Justin Welby have been in contact with the principals in the dispute. Neither South Carolina nor the national church offices have responded publicly to the proposal so far.
First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.
Jefferts Schori to convene a special convention for South Carolina: Anglican Ink, December 8, 2012 December 9, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Ink, South Carolina, The Episcopal Church.Tags: Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence
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Katharine Jefferts Schori
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has called a special convention of the Episcopal Diocese of South Carolina for 26 January 2013 to elect a provisional bishop.
On 8 Dec 2012 the “steering committee” of South Carolina, a group of lay and clergy members of the diocese loyal to the national church announced that Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori would “convene” the gathering at Grace Church in Charleston.
Read it all in Anglican Ink.
Anglican Unscripted Episode 59: December 7, 2012 December 7, 2012
Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Aotearoa New Zealand & Polynesia, Anglican.TV, ARCIC, Church of England, The Episcopal Church.Tags: David Moxon, Justin Welby, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Mark Lawrence, Primates, Rowan Williams, Vatican
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This first week of Advent George and Kevin discuss the latest news from the Diocese of South Carolina and the unlawful actions of the Presiding Bishop. Your two favorite commentators also tackle the final Advent letter from Archbishop Rowan Williams and they share some sage advice for Bishop Justin Welby. Sadly, our third story was removed during editing in reaction to the tragedy today in London with the suicide of the Kate Middleton’s Nurse. Comments to AnglicanUnscripted@gmail.com #AU59
Also: Please keep AU Contributor Allan Haley in your prayers this week as he and his family are grieving the death of Allan’s sister.
